Navy Sports Central
What if I told you about a group of elite college athletes who compete in 36 different sports at one of the toughest institutions in the nation. For them, it’s not about name, image, and likeness or any other kind of major endorsement deal. Because at the end of the day, their ultimate goal is to serve their country. These young men and women represent the best our country has to offer. They compete at a high level on both the national and world stage, and their stories have mostly gone untold. I’m here to change all of that.
With Navy Sports Central, you'll get the latest news on the athletes, and their teams, gain some unique insights in our Deep Dive segment and hear from some great guests along the way.
So please join me, Karl Darden, and check out Navy Sports Central wherever you get your podcasts to learn more about these incredible athletes and our nation’s future leaders.
Navy Sports Central
Tacking, Jibing, and Running With the Wind: An Inside Look at the Navy Offshore Sailing Program
Welcome to Navy Sports Central - The Official Podcast of the Navy Sports Nation!
Today, we're charting a course through the world of offshore sailing - a sport where Navy holds an impressive 15 NCAA Championships. Joining me on this maritime adventure is Warren Mazanec, a fellow classmate from '84 and a seasoned veteran of the offshore sailing team. He will provide invaluable insight into the intricacies of the sport. We're unpacking everything from the roles and responsibilities of the crew to vital maneuvers and race tactics, giving you a complete insider's view into the entire program at the Naval Academy.
We'll also navigate through the world of professional sailing and the evolution of the America's Cup, comparing boat designs and discussing the sport's growth. Finally, we'll reflect on Warren's time with the Zeiberger crew and his passion for making sailing a family affair.
Of course, we've also got our Question of the Day and Mid Watch segment, so please join us for what promises to be a very fun and informative episode!
Related Links:
- Navy Offshore Sailing win Storm Trysail Club Offshore Regatta
- Offshore Sailing Takes 3rd at Shields Trophy Regatta
On how many occasions has the Navy Offshore Sailing team won the Kennedy Cup in consecutive years?
A. Once
B. Twice
C. Three times
D. Four times
Give us your answer on the Navy Sports Nation Group Facebook page.
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Music is provided courtesy of Audio Jungle. Artists featured in order:
- Seven In Music (Intro)
- Alexiaction (Deep Dive)
- Loka Music (Deep Dive Pt. 2 Lead In)
- Artlss (Question of the Day Lead In)
- Cinematic Alex (Closeout Music)
If you like what you hear, support the Mids and the show at the same time! Navy Sports Central is a proud affiliate partner of Fanatics.com, the Ultimate Fan Gear Store! Click on the link to start shopping now!
Hi everybody, my name is Karl Darden and I'd like to welcome and thank all of you for joining us today on Navy Sports Central. I'm your host and this is the official podcast of the Navy Sports Nation where we take a deeper dive into Navy Sports. Last week was a little rough on the mids as the Army-Navy Star Series got underway. They suffered a couple of really tough setbacks in both men's golf and sprint football, so I'll give you a quick update on how those two contests went. Meanwhile, the football team looks to make it to and a row after a hard-fought win over North Texas. They are on the road to take on Charlotte University this weekend, a team that is much better than their current 1-4 record. And today, in our deep dive segment, we'll be talking about a sport where Navy owns 15 NCAA Championships and will be joined by an awesome guest who will help us learn more about it. We will also have our question of the day and mid-watch segments, so please stay with us. Alright, so glad to have you with us here today on Navy Sports Central, whether this is your first visit or your regular listener. Thanks for taking the time. I'm going to keep the sports update kind of short today because I want to get into the deep dive segment. The sport we'll be discussing has been on my list for a while. I just needed to track down a guest with the expertise to talk about the program, so you'll definitely want to stick around for that Now.
Karl:You all heard me say in the opening that the Mids got off to kind of a rocky start in the Army-Navy Star competition. The men's golf team looked to be in a pretty good spot after their four ball matches last week. They won all of them to take a 4-0 lead going into the singles matches on Saturday. That meant they needed to pull down two more points in the remaining seven singles matches to earn the star. Unfortunately, they were only able to come up with one and a half. The matches tied 5 and a half to 5 and a half after those seven singles matches were completed and Army ended up taking the star in the playoff. So no doubt that stung quite a bit. But this is a very young team. In fact I was surprised to learn that there are no seniors on a 10-man squad. It consists of three juniors, four sophomores and three freshmen. So from here on the men's golf team will be competing in a series of invitations as they work their way towards the Patriot League championships in April. By then they'll be much more battle tested and hopefully they'll be able to get some measure of revenge against Army when the time comes.
Karl:The sprint football team also came up short on the road against the Black Knights. This was your typical defensive battle. I mean, when these two teams get together, it is a very, very low-scoring game, and this year was no different. I mean, I think in terms of total yardage there was only a difference of about four yards between the two. I think Army had 225 and Navy had 229, something like that, but it all came down to basically turnovers. Navy was driving down for what looked like it was going to be the go-ahead score, but unfortunately Army came up with an interception and they were able to score a touchdown with about 47 seconds left in the game. That pretty much did it. If the Mids win the rest of their games, they could wind up facing the Black Knights in the CSFL championship game, just like they have the last two years, and no doubt they'll be looking to fix what went wrong last week.
Karl:I do want to end on a positive note, though, so I'll finish up by saying it was great to see the football team earn a hard-fought win over North Texas last week. The defense recorded a school record eight sacks. One of those came courtesy of sophomore Raider Luke Parris. He forced a fumble that the Mids recovered and converted into a touchdown, and that gave them the cushion they needed to get the win.
Karl:Finally, the men's rugby team took on Life University in a very close game. Life is a private school in Marietta, georgia, and they have an excellent program. In fact, the Mids had never beaten them in the years that they competed as a club team, but this time around Sean McLeaney came through with a try, with Navy trailing 14-13 in the second half. The kick put them up 20-14, and the defense made that stand up for the rest of the game. So the Mids are now 6-0 in the fall with five games left. And that includes Air Force and Army. What I don't get is that Army is not designated as a star match, and I'm pretty sure they play again in the spring, but so far that's not a star match either. If it was, that would make it a total of 26 for the year, and right now that number is still standing at 25. So I guess I'm not sure what's going on there. Alright, that's going to do it for our sports update. Stick around, because our deep dive segment is next. Okay, we are back.
Karl:When I started the Navy Sports Nation blog three years ago and followed that up with this podcast in 2021, one of my stated goals was to shine the spotlight on the sports at the Naval Academy that tend to fly under the radar. Those would be the ones besides football, basketball, baseball and I would put lacrosse in there as well. So that's what we're going to do today. In the opening, I shared that the Naval Academy has won 15 national championships in this particular sport. Now, I'm not sure if any of you were trying to guess which sport it was when I said that, but if you came up with offshore sailing, you would be correct To tell you the truth. You could fit what I know about this sport into a small shot glass and still have plenty of room for a generous amount of alcohol. So that's what.
Karl:I've got an awesome guest to help me out. He is my classmate from the class of 84 and he was a member of the offshore sailing team all four years Following graduation. He joined the submarine force and later came back to Annapolis to teach mathematics and to lead the summer sailing program, and during that time he played a pivotal role in developing the mid-seamanship and leadership skills. So I'm very happy to welcome Warren Mazanek to the podcast. So, warren, I really appreciate you joining me today. One of the reasons I wanted to feature offshore sailing is because I don't know that much about it, so thanks for taking the time.
Warren:Oh, thank you, Carl. This is a great opportunity and you're right, there aren't many people who know a lot about the offshore sailing team and the things that they've been able to accomplish, so I appreciate this opportunity.
Karl:Yeah, no problem. So now, sailing is not a sport that most mids are exposed to prior to arriving at the Naval Academy. Was that true in your case, or did you have sailing experience before getting there?
Warren:So there's formal sailing experience and then there's, you know, sort of youth knocking about in boats. And when I was a freshman in high school my father moved us to Cape Cod we're here as a principal of a high school and so I started sailing on the local ponds with sunfish and lasers and met some sailing friends who belong to the yacht club and I go along as crew and race with them and you know weekend races or some of the one designs. But at the Naval Academy the offshore team is sort of although it's a varsity sport kind of a club level entry point in that on the intercollegiate team, just like with football and baseball, there are blue chip recruits. They do recruiting, they identify people. Most of the people who come to the Naval Academy and end up, as you know, all American skippers and crews come out of formal sailing programs at yacht clubs from you know very early on. Just like in swimming, where you start at you know age four or five and you progress through the ranks, sailing is very, very similar. In offshore sailing it's usually people who raced with family or friends, have experience on the water. Maybe they were a sailing junior but didn't quite reach the level to make the intercollegiate team but want to continue their sailing. And so the offshore team is there and in our day it was made up of a fleet of the Navy 44 foot yalls, which are all the same design and donated boats.
Warren:So I started out, like I said, doing the club thing with families and friends on the Cape, the person that I was working for in high school. I went to 90 foot schooner and my sophomore year of high school he asked if I would sail with him down to the islands to start the winter charter season and they flew me home. I went down the springtime and I came back. So that was my first offshore experience. What happens that his brother was Dodge Morgan, the man who built American promise and set the record for the first solo nonstop around the world sail. And my junior year of high school. On our way down to the islands we ran into Hurricane Lucille, ended up getting dismasked it and spending several months in Marsh Harbor in the Bahamas doing refit and getting the boat ready. And then I came home, finished up my junior year and came to the Academy and I was able to leverage that offshore experience into getting on to the offshore team. So that's how I got there.
Karl:Hey, nice having some time off in the Bahamas before you finished up schooling, I guess, huh.
Warren:Well, there was. It was called the Calvert School back then and there was no internet or anything. But you know, they sent you off with a couple of boxes of materials and you would do self study. Somebody would proctor the exams for you, put them in an envelope and mail them in. That's how you got your grades. You know, looking back on it for increasing the odds to get into a surface Academy, that was probably not a smart move, but it was a lifetime experience. So you know, my parents were on board and I took advantage of it.
Karl:Wow, that's awesome. So it sounds like I mean, obviously you had a little bit of offshore experience before going in and that's really what kind of appealed to you about it. Let's talk a little bit about the types of boats that are used. You mentioned the 44 foot y'all and, by the way, the last time I was on a Naval Academy y'all was the end of Pleabes summer but I'm curious to know the different types of categories that you guys competed in when you were offshore sailing.
Warren:There's two basic kinds of fleets. One is a one design fleet. There are several thousand J24s and J105s and Pearson Flyers. They have a fleet organization. They maintain rigor specifications.
Warren:So technically when everybody goes on the water they're sailing an identically performing boat. Then it becomes really easy. The first one across the finish line wins. The other kind is when there is a rule, a design rule like the 12 meter rule. You do all the calculations for a sail area draft and all the thousands of things that go into the design. The answer has to equal 12 meters. The box can look like anything you want it to look like. The goal is to make the fastest boat for specific conditions and it equals the rule.
Warren:There are rating rules. You can race with a variety of boats and the attempt is to give them a rating so that, like a golf handicap, at the end of the day, if you have a 25 handicap, then you get 25 bonus points. If you're golfing against somebody who's a five handicapper, you get 20 more points towards leveling the field than he does. That's kind of like how the rating systems work. There are two objectives too. You can spend both sets. You can spend a lot of money, but to make the sport competitive and affordable to average people who want to race sailboats.
Warren:One design sailing is very appealing because typically your local fleet will one year sail. Everybody will buy a main sail and they'll do a group buy and the price will be good. Everybody sails with the same set of sails and they rotate through. Better sailors typically end up on top, but it allows average sailors to go out and have fun and be marginally competitive In intercollegiate. They're much smaller boats, typically two or three person crews. They're singles and all the boats are identical. All the sails are identical. Again, it's whoever is fastest around the course wins and there's no calculating different boats against each other, right?
Karl:Okay, I was wondering if you can kind of understand it. Offshore sailing crew. I was wondering if you could just kind of run down first of all how many people are in it and then secondly, just a real quick thumbnail sketch on their positions and responsibilities.
Warren:Certainly so. As you would imagine, it depends upon the size of the boat. Some of the very large 80 footers go offshore with 20, 22 people and there just seems to be bodies everywhere. On the Navy 44, which is the modern version of the Navy, all typically 10 people. So there will be two safety coaches, one for each watch section. There'll be two upper class firsties as sort of watch captains, two other second class and then there will be three plebe youngster second class that round out that watch section's crew, and so you have five on, five off, except maybe in bed.
Warren:Whether you need to do a sail change, you need all hands. But typically it's important starboard kind of a watch arrangement. When you're racing offshore, when we're racing on the Chesapeake Bay, and it's a full day, six hour race, all hands are on deck full time. And so you need people to grind winches, trim the head sail, work the fore deck for sail changes, trim the main sail. And I'm going in from and I don't want to say least importance, but from the low skill to the higher skill jobs. So you kind of start as a plebe grinding the winch, watching how everything goes in the boat. You transition to trimming the head sail, which is you get a lot of advice and help from everybody in doing that, but you're on the low side of the boat, your feet are always wet, so that's where your second step is is in the trenches.
Warren:Skill positions are working the fore deck, which is sail changes, jibing the spinnaker, pulling the lines, the strings, so raising and lowering sails, dipping the spinnaker pole for a jib, making sure that all lines are running free so that you can execute any evolution without worrying about getting your gear tangled. And then main sail trim is probably like the senior technical position. He works very closely with the helmsman to balance the boat, keep everything going in the right direction. And then you have a helmsman, which is typically the skipper and a tactician, somebody to keep the big picture, like CIC on a ship, of what's going on and advising the skipper where to drive the boat so that we can be most efficient to getting to the line first.
Karl:Right, right, okay, very cool. So now let's get into a typical practice day. I was wondering if you could kind of describe some of the key maneuvers that are just absolutely critical to be able to compete when you're out there, to be successful and then regarded. So if you could run that down for me, that'd be great.
Warren:So there's two really scenarios that we practice with the offshore team and one of them is when we're all sailing at 8044, so it's a one design and a practice race. So you get to practice tactics against people. You race on a short race course which forces you to tack more efficiently. When you're going downwind, your jibes have to be crisp and fast, and so the windward, going to the windward mark and then back down to the lower mark, is a short and distance of practice. So it's very, very fast paced. Typically you'll start out early in the season and you'll be doing drills, reefing and un-reefing, the mainsail, practicing your man overboard drill. Everybody on the crew has to be able to assume just about any position on the boat during a man overboard drill, especially in bad weather when it's typically, when it happens, very challenging, very easy to lose a crew. So that's something that they practice extensively, but work really hard on standard language so that everybody, when something like this happens, everybody uses the same terminology, the same commands and every member of the crew is fluent in a number of the critical positions so that the first one on the scene can take that spot and make sure that it's a successful recovery.
Warren:So, like we'll do upwind sailing and we'll go all the way out into the bay and rather than tack and sit on that tack for a long time, you will tack, get the trim down, get the boat speed up, get the boat speed where it wants to be and then you'll tack over.
Warren:And you'll do this 100 times during practice and it gets you to be crisp, trains the helmsman how to smoothly come about without losing too much speed.
Warren:It teaches the sail trippers how to work with the boat as it comes up into speed and adjust the sail trim so that you get back to your maximum speed as quickly as possible. Now, when you get to the other end, you turn around, you come back, you put up your spit sticker and you jib from side to side over and over and over again. As soon as the sails are set and drawn properly, you execute the next one, and it's just a repetitive thing so that it becomes muscle memory Everybody gets familiar with. You know I have to ease this line four feet and it becomes. Rather than paying it out carefully, you know exactly where it is and boom, you can get the topping lift and the pole through the fore triangle as quickly as possible without any mix ups. So there's a lot of drills like that that happen tacking and jiving and then, of course, then you get to practice against your teammates, which is great.
Karl:Okay, all right. So I noted, just kind of skimming, through the Navy Sports webpage and everything, the offshore sailing team. First of all, it doesn't appear that they have much of an off-season at all. There looks like they're racing year-round. And secondly, they did compete in the Race Around Long Island a couple of months ago and did pretty well. Aside from those open water races where you're going either around a geographic landmark or you're doing point to point, like from Bermuda to I don't know, new York or something like that, what might a typical course setup look like? I mean, is it an out-and-back sort of thing or does it vary?
Warren:So setting up a race course and having a good race committee is really as critical. When we were in college, the typical race course was a triangle race course and there was a windward going straight up wind leg, a straight down wind leg, and then there were a couple of reaching legs and the reaching legs was really hard to. It's based on boat speed, so the faster the boat, you stay on one tack the whole time and you kind of race down, you flip over, you do the same fast, reach back, and they felt that that was less competitive. So today's race courses are called windward lures, and so the goal is to have the starting line perpendicular to the wind and the windward mark is directly upwind. So there should technically be no advantage to going to the right or the left when you start.
Warren:In the perfect world and in the real world, paying attention to your environment, knowing where the winds are coming from, where they're likely to shift, will lead you to choosing one side of the course over the other because it should be more advantageous.
Warren:You get to the windward mark, you turn around, you put up your spinnaker and as you come back, instead of having one mark they have two. That is called a gate, and so you get to choose whether you, when you go through the gate, whether you go to the right or the left and sometimes one side is more favored than the other but it also is more crowded with other boats you may choose to go to the least crowded side because you'll have an easier time getting around and back up to speed. And so typically in that kind of a race environment, three to five races a day, depending upon the size of the boat and the length of the course, and if it's a two or three day event, you can have anywhere up to 12 races with one or two throwouts. So if you have a bad race you get to toss out your worst score.
Karl:And one of the things that you had mentioned actually before we started was the impact on weather on one of the trips that you're taking when you're in high school. So my question is obviously you don't race in even tropical storm conditions or anything like that, but I was wondering what the basic limitations are in terms of weather and what was the worst weather you ever raced in.
Warren:It depends on the event and the type of boat. In a typical J24, it's a 24 foot sloop, it's a one design class. Or the Soling, which was the Olympic three man sloop, when you got to 15 knots of breeze it was getting towards the upper end. If it got consistently above 20, they would typically postpone racing until the wind came down. But when you're talking like larger offshore boats, we won. When I was back at the Academy as an instructor, we won the Annapolis Newport race on American Promise. It was a solid gale force winds the entire way from the moment we left the Chesapeake till we pulled into Newport, rhode Island. But I was on American Promise, a very heavy, sturdy, 60 foot boat that was designed to sail in extreme weather. We were able to carry a lot of sail and just plow our way through the waves. That was what the boat was built for. The other large boats that were in the race were sporty. They were built a lot lighter. Their gear was not designed for all the extreme weather. The boats that probably should have won the race most of them ended up retiring because of the weather, because it was an offshore race. That's part of the package. We continued to compete. I had a great team of mids with me. It was really awesome going across the finish line in Castle Rock and Narragansett Bay and hearing the gun go off and like who's that for? Oh, is that for us? We had no idea we had done that well In the Chesapeake or in any other weekend type regatta.
Warren:Once the winds start getting above 25 or 30 miles an hour, certain fleets will postpone their racing. Larger boats will continue racing. At just some point it becomes unsafe, either because of lightning and swalls or just danger to crew and equipment. It's all up to the race committee. Having an excellent race committee is important because they understand the limitations of the boats. They will keep you racing right up until that ragged edge of are we safe or not, and they know when to call the race and when to tell you to continue. They bring a large safety aspect. I've also been in races where skippers have said well, it's just getting a little too rough out here. I don't want to get anybody hurt. I think we're going to go in and we just retire from the race. It's an individual decision.
Karl:Okay, All right. So now, specific to the Naval Academy program. One thing I learned just in researching this was that the Kennedy Cup is recognized as the national championship for collegiate offshore sailing. What I didn't know was that the Naval Academy has won that 15 times, including back-to-back years when we were there in 81 and 82. So I was wondering what recollection you have of those two years. That's obviously when we were plebs and sophomores and youngsters. What do you recollect from either one of those two races? I didn't know if you happened to be part of the crew or anything like that, but I'd be curious to get your take on those.
Warren:So when we were midshipmen, I'm going to guess we had about 10 boats in the offshore team. It was basically everybody who wanted to sail was given the opportunity and during the fall season it was the McMillan Cup, which was sort of like the East Coast championships, sailed under our Navy 44s and it was against other colleges on the East Coast and we would. It was an opportunity to choose teams and it was usually by class and so there was a bunch of 84s you know Chris Kramer, dan Crisp I'm going to forget people like John Stamos, robin Myers and we formed a team, probably not our fall of our freshman year, but maybe for the Kennedy Cup in the spring of freshman year, cleave year and we competed no, we didn't do so well because we were fairly new, but that sort of nucleus stayed together. And in the fall of our youngster year we competed for McMillan Cup and there's four, five, six boats that are competing and it's a competition in the boat that wins the competition gets to represent Navy in the in the Kennedy Cup and McMillan Cup.
Warren:And what was really exciting about that was it also gave us a chance to compete against the intercollegiate team, and the intercollegiate team was racing laser single person boats, 420s, two person boats and they did some three person slope racing. So they were not part of a larger crew that routinely sailed big boats but because they were excellent at the tactics still in its sail trim and the fast pace of Diggie sailing, you know 50% of the time they would have the winning team and 50% of the time we would have the winning team and it was sort of a pride thing. So I competed in Kennedy Cup spring of second class year and I did McMillan Cup fall of second class year and fall of first class year and that was one of the two ways you could earn your varsity letter and one was sailing. You know those two were goddess and the other was a skipper about.
Karl:Okay, all right, cool. Now, after graduation, you still remained involved with the program at some point. I think I recall you talking about it was the summer sailing program or something like that. I was wondering if you could run that down for us. What were some of the things, what were some of your responsibilities, and how did that program run?
Warren:So when I finished my department tour on a submarine, I had the opportunity to come back and do my payback tour for grad school. So I was in the math department and I had the opportunity to choose between doing sub-RYP crews or the sailing crews. Obviously, I chose the sailing crews. It was a great way to get back into working with the midshipmen. Small unit leadership opportunity for them to take home responsibilities. As I would tell them on the way up to New England, your job is to put me out of one so that when we come back I can sit on the fan tail and just watch. They almost always rose to the occasion. It was really incredible to watch the maturation process and how they went from not really knowing how to sail to being fairly competent on a boat. So I did that. During the three years that I taught in the math department and I was active in the training aspect of it, the sailing center asked me if I would consider going to take a US sailing instructor trainer course for keelboats and I did and I became the. I think I was the first naval officer to be an instructor trainer for US sailing, so I would run certification clinics for sailing instructors. I did that because I thought it was important to bring back a national standard in sail training to try to help incorporate into our curriculum. When I was approaching the end of my time in the math department I was starting to look at where I was going to go next and the director of ProDev reached out to me and asked me what I consider going over to the sailing center to run the summer sail training program. At the time the billet was located in loose hall and you can't do a PCS move from within your same command. So they moved the billet for the sailing position over to the naval station the same week that U-PERS moved to Millington Tennessee. So the computer that controlled where the billets were assigned sat in a box for three years and when they finally got it set up and changed my billet, they cut my orders from the date of the billet change, not when I started the job. So I ended up at the sailing center for a little over five years running sail training. So it was great I got to participate in the winter training cycle to make sure that our coaches and our first class midshipmen were properly trained. They understood the responsibilities of being watch captain and safety coach Come springtime, midshipmen who had chosen to go on the summer sail cruise, we can get them out and start the training process.
Warren:Then it was a three-week cycle. They come in, they do chart preps, they're given money so they have to do meal planning and go buy their food. They get it all stored. They sail during the day to get up to speed. Then on the second week they leave Santee Basin, head down the Chesapeake or up to Chesapeake and go to New England and get to Newport and spend the weekend and they turn around and sail back and turn the boat over for the next group to go. It was really a fabulous process.
Warren:I was there long enough that when I was in the math department I had a young pleab. He was a tall, gangly kid, grabbed, uncoordinated, very shy, and you go. Oh my God, this is the future of our Navy. Well, when I was at the sailing center we had a President's Circle Day for the alumni and I got asked to make half a dozen boats available to take out these President's Circle donors and do a harbor tour. This kid Ben he was the first day at the time and he had volunteered I got everybody on their boats and then I said I'll just go out with this one, and I got on Ben's boat. He had not only participated in youngster sailing crews but he was part of the sail training program and he had completed his first class cruise as a watch captain and got his skipper qual. It was remarkable that the change in what I had seen when I first met him as a pleab to being a poised young man who was in charge proper safety brief there was not a moment during the hour and a half underway that I felt I needed to step in. He was just fabulous. And that is typical of what happens when a young midshipman gets involved with the sailing program early on and the maturation process through his four years at the academy, and then you turn out these really fine young men.
Warren:My time at the academy continued long beyond my sailing program experience. I went back across the river to ProDev and I got to watch this young man come back as a lieutenant. I was even more amazed at how remarkable an individual this was and that I had some part in the process of getting him to being the person that he was. That's, I think, for the sailing program. That's one of those lifetime opportunities and the midshipman that sees it really do. Well. There was a boat when we were there as Patriot. It was a Verus 46, a black-eyed boat and I believe in the time I was a midshipman there were four admirals that came off of that one boat.
Warren:Wow, it's one of those experiences that give you a great sense of Siemens' Eye appreciation for the weather, the challenge of maneuvering boats, especially in crowded harbors.
Warren:When you take a sailboat and you go onto a starting line with 40 or 50 other large sailboats, you don't have a CIC team behind you doing radar plotting and telling you CPAs.
Warren:It's all Seamans' Eye and it's something that you get to develop over the course of your maturation process on the team. I found that when I got to my first submarine, when we were entering and exiting port, I was chosen over the department heads to be the officer of the deck because my experience of driving large sailboats onto a crowded starting line. I think it gave me the ability to see the other traffic for what it was and drive the ship proactively in a safe course rather than waiting for the nav plot and CIC to tell me where to go. The same reason we had so many successful pilots come out of the sailing team on a ship and you're doing 20 or 30 knots, your event horizon is fairly long. When you're flying around at I don't know what they fly around at 500 or 600 miles an hour, your event horizon is much, much shorter. I think that that ability of seeing the situation, making an instant analysis and choosing a correct course leads to being a better pilot as well.
Karl:All right, good, good, I'll tell you what. We're going to take a short break, but first I wanted to let you all know that you can stay totally up to speed on what's going on with Navy Sports by joining our group Facebook page and by following this podcast. I'll put a link in the show notes to get you to our Navy Sports Nation group page, and following the show is even easier. All you've got to do is tap the follow button. Whether you're listening to Apple Podcasts, spotify, google Podcasts, it doesn't matter. This will automatically drop the most recent episode into your library as soon as it's released, and you can listen to it whenever you're ready. It is definitely the easiest way to show your support for Navy Sports Central and the fastest way to grow the Navy Sports Nation community. So go ahead and hit that follow button right now. We'll be right back. All right, thanks again for joining us on Navy Sports Central, Karl Darden, here with you Today, we are talking about the Navy Offshore Sailing Program with my guest, warren Mazenek, who also happens to be my classmate.
Karl:Warren, we'll get back to our conversation in a minute, but first I wanted to give you an opportunity to talk about anything you'd like to share with our listeners. That's important to you. Maybe it's work related, but it doesn't have to be so go ahead and take it away. The mic is yours.
Warren:So what I'd like to do is just to give a shout out to the offshore program at the Naval Academy. It was very formative for me as a young person. It gave me the opportunity to take on responsibility, be competitive, learn what it means to be a great team. When I was able to come back and participate as one of the leadership in the sailing center, I got to see a whole different aspect of the dedication and the love for the sport that an entire host of volunteers and staff brought to the table every day. The offshore team has been very lucky to have John Tahanski as their leader. I'm thinking it's going close to 20 years.
Warren:I knew John long before he took this job and he ran J World in Annapolis. He was always a pillar of the sailing community. He went out of his way to make sure that and this is long before the Naval Academy he always did the right thing because it was the right thing to do so. When he came on board to be the head coach of the offshore team, he brought that philosophy with him. That meshes perfectly with what we are trying to teach our midshipmen, but there's a maintenance staff that takes time to teach the midshipmen on engine maintenance and sail care and how to repair winches. To the coaches, who volunteer hundreds of hours of their time to make sure that the midshipmen have ample opportunity to get on the water and do things in a safe fashion. And you get to meet other members of the sailing community and put their years of great experience to personal use. And so, like I said, it's such a wonderful family that I'll be forever indebted to the opportunities that they provided me and I hope that they continue for the future.
Warren:Midshipmen, the Navy in general the flavor has changed. A lot of the fun out of what we do has been regulated out of existence, and this is one of those opportunities to sell a young person on wind in your hair, cup of coffee on the bridge watching the sunrise in the middle of the ocean. And it's that kind of I love this that makes you a better sailor, a better person, a better naval officer. And so, like I said, I'm incredibly indebted to all the phenomenal people who, over the years, have been giving their time to make sure that midshipmen like me had an opportunity to grow with unlimited potential.
Karl:All right, all right, I don't know that I could have said that any better, warren, so I really appreciate that thought. All right, so let's go ahead and get back to our conversation Now. Along with the rifle team, both sailing programs were co-ed. Was that the case back then?
Warren:Yes, Okay, All right. So the first one was Kay Hire. She went on to be an astronaut and even as a midshipman she had that leadership it. You know, the person walks in the room and they don't really have to do anything, but you just get the sense that they're competent and in charge. And that was Kay, and I got the opportunity to sail for her and, despite all the garbage that she cut for being a female, she was just remarkable and I walked away thinking, well, here's a woman who I'd follow anywhere because she's a great leader and that helped, you know, frame my start of my naval career, because you could have easily ended up in a company where a very anti-woman and, you know, being a plebe and trying to stay under the radar you would buy into that vibe. And we didn't have that in 16th company, so I just thought it was amazing.
Karl:Yeah, Wow, that's a great story, Warren. Thanks for sharing it. So now let's talk a little bit about just professional racing, I guess is the best way to put it. I remember when the America's Cup was a really big deal and in fact when we were at the Academy, I think when they raced in 83, at least I think it was in 83, either in the fall of 83 or in the spring of 84, Dennis Connors boat lost to the boat from Australia which I guess was kind of renowned because it had a really innovative design of their keel it was a winged keel and then he won it back four years later when they raced out there in Western Australia. I don't hear as much about the America's Cup now and I try to kind of stay dialed in the most sports, but usually you hear that coming up on the radar every three to four years. I haven't heard that much lately. Is there a reason for that, or do you get the same feel, or is that just me?
Warren:So when we were in the American Cup was going on, they were racing a 12-meter design and taking to a bunch of factors. You do the math and the answer is 12 meters. So you can define the box any way you want, as long as the answer equal 12 meters. And it was a traditional monohull, and so that was something that a lot of people could relate to. In the ensuing years they have changed the design to make it a lot more exciting. Today they're sailing these 70-foot catamarans that are on hydrofoils and crew members are wearing body armor and crash helmets because they're running around at 50 miles an hour and if the boat starts to cartwheel you have to be protected because it could be.
Warren:In my personal opinion, that's a kind of sailing, although it's really exciting. I have a hard time relating to and in Europe and other places they have sailing venues that are very conducive to being a spectator sport, and so they're harbors that when you see on TV when they show the videos of the races, there's thousands of people that are there to watch the racing happen right in front of them, and I don't think that there are that many opportunities or venues here in the United States to do that kind of sailing to get a crowd together and generate that sort of excitement. So I think it has evolved. They've been trying to keep the sport relevant, try to encourage technology and I think for a certain segment of the sailing population that the America's Cup type racing has left us kind of behind.
Karl:Yeah, to your point about just the differences in the design. I remember within two years after Dennis Conner won the Americans Cup back and he did that in 87, there was another. I guess these countries can just put challenges out there anytime they want to. And that was the first time I started to see differences in boat design, because the next time I saw it was a challenge race. It looked like the Australians were sailing in a standard 12 meter boat. I'm sure there's some other modifications paid to it to come out to satisfy the rules, as you stated. But the American entry was, like you were saying, this monstrous camera and I'm thinking, wait, how in the world did they get that to go through, to get it approved? And secondly, the Australians don't stand a chance with that kind of it. Looked just like a complete mismatch. So was that the first time that you started seeing that? No-transcript.
Warren:With the Australians and their winged keel, they sort of opened the box out of the box, thinking so this was a new way of looking at stability and speed. I think somebody took a step back and said why are we limiting ourselves to one hall where we can have two? Can we work within the design rules? Again, that's probably about the point that many I don't say traditionalists, but many of us that sailed at race boats sort of lost interest because it was more of a spectacle than a competition.
Karl:Right, OK, Makes sense, All right. So now let's have what I hope is a little bit of fun and let's talk movies. I know that typically, whatever profession you happen to be in and if there's a movie that comes out, they kind of either reflects what you do for a living or what a passionate hobby of yours is, that sort of thing you always watch it with a really critical eye. I do the same thing anytime I see movies that involve helicopters for sure. So in 1992, they came out with a movie called Wind and it starred Matthew Maudine and Jennifer Gray and it was about the America's Cup races. I happened to watch it. I was knowing what I know about sailing.
Karl:It was fairly entertaining to me, but from your perspective, first of all, did you see it? And secondly, what was your take on it?
Warren:So, yes, I saw it. I really liked it. So, whether it's a movie about helicopters or submarines or racing sailboats, you can approach it in one of two ways. You could go at it and pick apart all the things that aren't accurate and it detracts from the overall movie. Or you can go into it and say I understand that there's going to be departure from reality, but I'm going to enjoy this for the story that it's supposed to be. And the storyline was pretty cool. It is pretty typical of a lot of us.
Warren:I believe that she came from a well-heeled family, grew up in the yacht club environment. Matthew Maudine I guess kind of like my experience moved somewhere where you could do sailing, sailed with friends, was a pickup crew but never part of the Blue Blazer Club, and got really good and I think the competition scenes and the decision making that went into it closely parallels the way it happens. But what I think they underplayed was the investment. These are people who spend insane amounts of money to gain that technological advantage, to win a race and have the America's Cup and the R&D dollars that go into it and the exotic materials that go into the boat building all that stuff. It seems improbable that a guy like Matthew Maudine's character would be able to generate the capital necessary to mount a successful campaign.
Warren:But it was supposed to be a happy ending story. It was they won. So I think it casts the America's Cup and sailing in a good light. If there was somebody that was interested in civil racing and hadn't quite made the leap, this was probably a good movie to encourage them to explore it a little bit more. So for being a good movie for entertainment, I thought it was fabulous.
Karl:Yeah, that was my take as well, and I was especially impressed with the way they filmed the sailing scenes, the racing scenes. I thought that really kind of pulled me into what was going on. Ok, it's funny here You've got a pretty good knack for answering questions before I ask them, but I'm going to kind of combine these two together here. You've already talked a lot about some of the technical innovations and changes that have basically made the sport completely different than what we're accustomed to seeing years ago. Now the question I'll put to you is based on that, and I'm going to put you in charge of yacht racing's governing body here. For, just theoretically, what are a couple of changes that you would make that would kind of satisfy both sides of the equation in terms of just keeping things innovative but not making it quite the spectacle as it is right now?
Warren:You know, there's almost very little. I look back I lived in Annapolis for 25 years while I was stationed at the Academy and then, when I worked in the defense industry and while I was with the Academy, I became part of a race crew from out in town people that had known beforehand, and we ended up sailing for over 20 years together before I moved out to New Mexico and changed my water sports to snow sports. I think that the sailing scene it is in a fairly healthy place right now. There are a lot of opportunities to participate in more entry level one design sailboats which help contain the cost. There is a community of learning and education associated with that class of boat. In most cases, they are very generous with their time and their advice and their expertise.
Warren:I was very fortunate that I raced Solings. It's a three man Olympic class sloop. My son was very active in racing those as well. He crewed for Stuart Walker, multiple Olympic competitor, world champion, and he was on the race course giving it his all into his 90s. Man was just a legend and my son got to sail with him. And in the 90s no sorry, 2014, my son and I raced together in the world championships up in Toronto and these are Olympic class competitors and the parking lot was as collegial as anything I had ever seen. Oh crap, I left my jib at home. Oh, here I have a spare, you can use that. And the thought was I don't want to go out there and win because somebody is at a disadvantage, I want to go out, win because I'm better.
Warren:There were crews whose combined age was 200. And there were crews who were young people and that was sort of the spirit that you find in the one design classes. That are the classics. You find that in Wednesday night racing in an apples harbour or Newport or pick a place that does Wednesday night racing Business takes me out to San Diego. I really try hard to make sure I'm there for Wednesdays. I do Wednesday night sailing with Gerald David and his wife Ann and it is a very welcoming casual. Let's get out on the water and sail a course and, ok, we'll call it a race, but it's just an opportunity to take a break midweek and get out on the water and I think that vibe is really alive and well.
Warren:I think in terms of world class competition there are avenues for people to compete in the one design realm and Olympic class sailboats. Those are typically simpler. If you're that good and that's your passion, there are opportunities to go. You know, grand Prix and in another direction, and so I think, depending on your personality and your desires, there are multiple opportunities for you to pursue in whatever direction you need to go.
Warren:I have sailed from club level to pro-Gran Prix and I ended up sailing with this particular crew, the Zeiberger crew, for 20 years because on a Wednesday evening those are the people that I just wanted to hang out with. I mean, we were good, we won, but it was a very collegial environment. Nobody yelled at anybody. You know we all did our best, it was a team effort and I just like being around those people.
Warren:I've been on other boats that were filled with very aggressive type A personalities and there was yelling and you know the tension was high and, although we won, it was not a pleasant experience, and so, you know, I got to the point where I didn't feel like I needed to, you know, prove myself any longer and I got to do what I really enjoyed, right, and that conveyed to my children, who Also raised sailboats, and when they had the opportunity They'd say, hey, dad, you want to go out sailing. Which was really my goal, was to create Something that we could do together as a family, and so that's, you know, the. My end game was to make this a family sport, and I think you know we can do this for the next. You know, god willing, 30 years and and I'll still have children who will say, hey, that's pretty cool, dad, can we go sailing again this summer?
Karl:Right, right, okay. Well, that sounds like a pretty good spot to stop, warren. I really appreciate the insight. So thank you very much for joining me to talk about the Navy offshore sailing program. It has definitely been a good learning experience for me. Oh no, worries. No worries at all.
Warren:If you have any other questions, send me an email. I'll answer the best I can okay, sounds good, take care.
Karl:All right, we are approaching the home stretch. We'll be back shortly with our question of the day and mid-watch segments. Okay, it is time to jump into our question of the day, but before I get to that, I did want to basically confirm something Warren said about what yacht racing is like these days, at least when it comes to the America's Cup. I happen to jump on one of the the yachting websites recently, and I think it's probably one specific to the America's Cup. But I will tell you I could not believe what I was seeing. I mean, warren was right, you have these huge catamarans, these double-hole, these double-hole boats that we're just flying all over the place, I mean just going, these incredible rates of speed, just crazy, death-defying angles. And I tell you what? There's no wonder that wearing crash helmets and body armor, because you get thrown from one of those things and, believe me, you may not walk away from it. So, anyway, I can see why. You know, some of the more traditional professional racers have kind of gotten away from that, but definitely Something crazy to look at. All right, let's go ahead and get to our questions today and, as usual, let's start with the one from our last episode, remember it had to do with a Navy goalkeeper, maddie Gallagher. And here it is.
Karl:Maddie Gallagher played a pivotal role in starting nine of ten games as a freshman for the Navy women's soccer team. Her goals against average during the season was a microscopic 0.80 per game. What was her save percent is during that same period? Was it a 77 percent, b, 79 percent, c, 82 percent or D 84 percent? The most popular answer was D 84 percent, and there were 61 percent of you who selected that one, and then 38 percent of you chose C, which was 82 percent. Neither 77 percent nor 79 percent received any votes, and it turns out that the correct answer was D 84 percent. So shout out to all my 84 classmates who jumped all over that answer way to go. It was really tough to get a shot past Gallagher that year. One of the things I've seen her do really well to this day is redirect the ball over the cross ball On a shot that's going kind of high. That takes some real athletic ability and some pretty good hops too. And you know Gallagher is is 5 7, so certainly not short, but not overly tall either, which tells you she's probably got a pretty good vertical. Now, these last three setbacks that the women's soccer team has suffered have derailed their regular season title aspirations. But if they can reverse course and win at least two of these last three league games, they can generate a little bit of momentum going into the Patriot League tournament, where basically anything can happen.
Karl:Okay, now let's get to our question for this week's episode. I mentioned earlier that the Naval Academy has won the Kennedy Cup 15 times. That is basically offshore sailings version of the NCAA championship. Now, on how many occasions did the Mids win it in consecutive years? Was it a just once, b twice, c three times or D four times? Go ahead and give that some thought and let me know what you come up with. I will have the question up on the Navy Sports Nation Group Facebook page by the end of the day and you can respond there.
Karl:Now we're going to close things out by checking in to see how our two athletes on the midwatch are doing. First we've got Averi Miller, who is a senior from Phoenix Arizona and she is a setter for the volleyball team who, at six feet, can be used as a blocker and a hitter if necessary. I'm recording this segment on Friday evening, october 13th, and it occurred to me that the Navy just finished playing American University and I just happened to check the score. Navy came from two sets to one, down to win three sets to two, and Averi Miller had 47 of the Mids 53 assists, and she also added four kills and ten digs to go along with that. At her current rate she's a deadlock to finish her career in the top five in both total assists and assists per set. This win ends a three match losing streak and the Mids are still in decent shape to get themselves in a position for a good seat at the Patriot League tournament. But they will have to win out the rest of their games and they do have another shot against Army in the star match which takes place on November the 11th.
Karl:Okay, let's move on to the men, and here we're looking at freshman Kiefer Black from the water polo team. He is from San Diego, california, and currently leads the Mids in both goals with 43 and assists with 37, and that gives him a total of 80 points. I did watch this guy play when the Mids took on Air Force last month and Black didn't score, but he had three really nice assists, and what's amazing to me is how high he is able to elevate himself when he takes a shot, makes it pass or gets a steal. Remember, these guys aren't pushing off from the bottom of the pool, okay. It takes some serious leg strength and athleticism to propel your body halfway out of the water to make a play in water polo and at 6'7" 220, kiefer Black is just simply a beast. He's actually got a decent shot at a 100 point season. The team has five games left, plus the Mid-Atlantic Water Polo Association tournament, so all he needs is four or five points a game to get to 100. The Mids are currently ranked 19th in the country and I think it's fair to say that Black will definitely be one of the keys to their success as they finish up the regular season and try to qualify for the NCAA tournament. That's going to do it for this edition of Navy Sports Central.
Karl:Thank you all so much for joining us Now. If you like what you've heard, please be sure to hit that follow button wherever you get your podcast and remember to get the word to all the other Navy fans out there. Once again, I'd like to thank my fellow classmate, Warren Mazanek, for joining me today to talk about the Navy Offshore Sailing Program. I don't know about you guys, but I know way more about it now compared to before.
Karl:Our question of the day continues to be a show favorite. You can get in on that by joining the Navy Sports Nation group Facebook page and giving your answer to this week's question. I will pin it to the top so you don't miss it. And just a quick reminder the views expressed on Navy Sports Central are my own and do not reflect those of the US Naval Academy or Navy Athletics. By the way, the music used in Navy Sports Central comes to your courtesy of Audio Jungle. This is a great site for purchasing the rights to use the music from thousands of artists around the world, and those featured in the podcast will be credited in our show notes. Talk to you soon, everybody. Until next time. This is Karl Darden Go Navy! Beat Army!
